Mascot is a software search engine that uses mass spectrometry data to identify proteins from peptide sequence databases. Mascot is widely used by research facilities around the world. Mascot uses a probabilistic scoring algorithm for protein identification that was adapted from the MOWSE algorithm. Mascot is freely available to use on the website of Matrix Science. A license is required for in-house use where more features can be incorporated. MOWSE was one of the first algorithms developed for protein identification using peptide mass fingerprinting. It was originally developed in 1993 as a collaboration between Darryl Pappin of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) and Alan Bleasby of the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC). MOWSE stood apart from other protein identification algorithms in that it produced a probability-based score for identification. It was also the first to take into account the non-uniform distribution of peptide sizes, caused by the enzymatic digestion of a protein that is needed for mass spectrometry analysis. However, MOWSE was only applicable to peptide mass fingerprint searches and was dependent on pre-compiled databases which were inflexible with regard to post-translational modifications and enzymes other than trypsin. To overcome these limitations, to take advantage of multi-processor systems and to add non-enzymatic search functionality, development was begun again from scratch by David Perkins at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. The first versions were developed for Silicon Graphics Irix and Digital Unix systems. Eventually this software was named Mascot and to reach a wider audience, an external bioinformatics company named Matrix Science was created by David Creasy and John Cottrell to develop and distribute Mascot. Legacy software versions exist for Tru64, Irix, AIX, Solaris, Microsoft Windows NT4 and Microsoft Windows 2000. Mascot has been available as a free service on the Matrix Science website since 1999 and has been cited in scientific literature over 5,000 times. Matrix Science still continues to work on improving Mascot’s functionality. More information...
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